SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]: “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.,an American jurist and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932 (Reportedly first said by Holmes in a speech in 1904, alternately phrased as “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, including the chance to insure“, Compania General De Tabacos De Filipinas v. Collector of Internal Revenue, 275 U.S. 87, 100, dissenting; opinion (21 November 1927). The first variation is quoted by the IRS above the entrance to their headquarters at 1111 Constitution Avenue.)

2018 Open Enrollment runs from Nov 1 – Dec 15. Are you ready?

NEXT WEEK (11/20) TENTATIVE: My good friend, writer, author, political and military commentator, etc – David W. Brown. This will be unusual in that even though I’ll have a guest, it will be open forum.

TWO WEEKS 11/27 (TENTATIVE): We may be talking about what is involved in getting your loved one into assisted living, as distinct from either retirement living or a nursing home.

The median household income in the U.S. is $59,039 according to the most recent government data. Approximately half of all Americans will fall below this household income amount, and the other half will fall above.

At the top of the income classes is the upper class. There is no single definition of whom this includes. Many think of the upper class in terms of the 1%. To be in the richest 1% nationally, a household needs to have the annual income of at least $389,436, according to the Economic Policy Institute

According to census data from 2015, 6.1% of households bring in $200,000 and higher every year and 14.1% bring in between $100,000 and $150,000. This is the upper middle class.

An Urban Institute paper argued that what they referred to as upper middle class, or those with a three-person household income between $100,000 and $350,000, has grown from 12.9% of the population in 1979 to 29.4% in 2014.

The Census Bureau says that 41.5% of American households brought in between $35,000 and $100,000 in 2015. Twenty-six percent of American households earn more than that and 32% earn less.

there’s one more group in the middle class. Those belonging to the lower middle class do not live in poverty, but they are often one misfortune away from being hurtled below the poverty line. Brookings Institution defined this group as including those with income between 100 and 250% of the federal poverty level, or between $18,871 and $47,177 for a family of three,

The Census Bureau estimates that about 14% of the U.S. population (approximately 43 million people) live below the poverty line and fall into this class today.

The current official poverty threshold is an income of $24,257 per year for a family of four and $18,871 for a family of three.

A refresher for all of us that words matter: “Choose Your Words – mean/ median/ average

Let’s say we have a set of numbers: 11, 23, 30, 47. 56

The mean, sometimes called the arithmetic mean, of this set is 33. The mean is the sum of all the numbers in the set (167) divided by the amount of numbers in the set (5).

The median is the middle point of a number set, in which half the numbers are above the median and half are below. In our set above, the median is 30.

But what if your number set has an even number of, er, numbers:11, 23, 30, 47, 52, 56

To calculate the median here, add the two middle numbers (30 + 47) and divide by 2. The median for our new list is 38.5.

So far, so good. But what about average? The average of a set of numbers is the same as its mean; they’re synonyms.

So the terms we need to worry about are Mean/Average on one hand and Median on the other.

Editor’s note: Taking a cue from Slate, this article describes an American news story — the virtually unprecedented prosecution of nearly 200 protesters on felony charges — using language the American media typically reserves for news stories written about more repressive countries. Felony charges against American journalists are jarring. Our approach to this story is meant to be as well.

WASHINGTON — An American photojournalist swept up in a mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators conducted by security forces in the nation’s capital earlier this year during a protest of a regime change ceremony will face a criminal trial here Monday.

Alexei Wood, a 37-year-old freelance photojournalist based in the American southwest, has been charged with multiple felonies. If found guilty, he could face decades inside a mammoth prison system in the world’s most incarcerated nation.

Wood was one of more than 200 citizens captured en masse by police forces quelling demonstrations held at the same time as President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Just weeks before, the tough-talking real estate magnate and reality television star shocked the nation’s political class when his rightward, populist campaign beat out that of a candidate from America’s predominant center-left political dynasty.

Sex and Politics: Where’s the boundary between innocent and inappropriate?

DAVID W. BROWN: “…Roy Moore [is] the future of GOP. I’ve long said that whoever comes after Trump will take all of the lessons learned and go hard, because unlike trump they won’t have a big tv platform. Roy Moore is the apotheosis of that. All of trump’s negatives, and doing EVERYTHING trump did in campaign. Media war, outrageous statements, overt racism etc. And it’s working!!! Despite evidence of pedophilia!! The next republican candidate for president will follow that model exactly.”

If Roy Moore shot someone to death in the middle of 5th Ave, would La Gov. Kaye Ivey still vote for him.

Beverly Young Nelson, now 55, said Monday that she got to know Moore, now 70, in the late 1970s when she was a waitress at the Old Hickory House restaurant in the northeastern Alabama town of Gadsden

On a cold night about a week or two after that, Nelson alleges that Moore offered to give her a ride home from work after her shift ended at 10 p.m. Instead of taking her home, Nelson said that Moore pulled the two-door car into a dark and deserted area between a dumpster and the back of the restaurant.

When she asked what he was doing, Nelson alleges that Moore put his hands on her breasts and began groping her. When she tried to open the car door and leave, Nelson said he reached over and locked the door. When she yelled at him to stop and tried to fight him off, she alleges that he tightly squeezed the back of her neck and tried to force her head toward his lap. He also tried to pull her shirt off, she said.

During World War Two, thousands of Japanese pilots volunteered to be kamikaze, suicidally crashing their planes in the name of their emperor. More than 70 years on, the BBC’s Mariko Oi asks what these once revered men mean to Japan’s youth.

Irrational, heroic and stupid: this was what three young people in Tokyo said when I asked them about their views on the kamikaze….

It is difficult to verify the figures, but it is believed that 3-4,000 Japanese pilots crashed their planes into an enemy target on purpose.

Only 10% of missions were believed to be successful but they sank some 50 Allied vessels.

Would you fight for your country? A survey of several countries in 2015 by Win/Gallup found that 11% of Japanese people would be prepared to fight for their country.

The clause states: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”

The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President or Acting President if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency.[1] The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967.[2]

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.[3]

History of the terms: The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained, “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.[9]

… Libertarians tend to be logical and analytical. They are confident that their principles will create an ideal society, even though they have no consensus of what that society would be like. Greens, on the other hand, tend to be more intuitive and imaginative. They have clear images of what kind of society they want, but are fuzzy about the principles on which that society would be based.

Ironically, Libertarians tend to be more utopian and uncompromising about their political positions, and are often unable to focus on politically winnable proposals to make the system more consistent with their overall goals. Greens on the other hand, embrace immediate proposals with ease, but are often unable to show how those proposals fit in to their ultimate goals.

The most difficult differences to reconcile, however, stem from baggage that members of each party have brought with them from their former political affiliations. Most Libertarians are overly hostile to government and cling to the fiction that virtually all private fortunes are legitimately earned. Most Greens are overly hostile to free enterprise and cling to the fiction that harmony and balance can be achieved through increased government intervention.

KPFT is a 501(c)3 non-profit, and it can always use your tax-deductible support. Most of the folks who work and broadcast at KPFTare volunteers, but it still has fixed and variable expenses, and it still costs $150/hour, 24/7/365 to keep KPFT on the air.

About Thinkwing Radio

Mike Honig is originally from Brooklyn, New York. He moved to Houston in September of 1977 and has been there ever since. Mike's interests are politics, history, science, science fiction (and reading generally), technology, and almost anything else. Mike has knowledge and experience in many diverse fields, sometimes from having worked in them, and sometimes from extensive reading or discussion about them. Mike's general knowledge makes him a favorite partner in Trivial Pursuit. He likes to say that about most things, he knows enough to be dangerous. Humility is a work-in-progress.